SUMMARY: The process of optimizing the Marketing and Sales funnel can be a tiresome task. However, breaking the funnel into small stages, marketers can reveal opportunities for improvement. Each organization will approach the project uniquely, but it may be helpful to understand which funnel process will be the most demanding.

In this week’s chart, find out which Marketing-Sales funnel processes were found to be most challenging by more than 1,700 B2B marketers.

Our study found the majority of B2B marketers lack maturity in funnel optimization processes, so it is natural for them to indicate lead-to-customer conversion as the most challenging funnel process.

Organizations are beginning to recognize this as a Sales and Marketing function. However, it is still relatively new to marketers.

Despite the higher level of maturity displayed by B2B marketers in lead generation practices, this is still a significant challenge for them. Once they begin to gain maturity in funnel optimization strategies, they will likely find that their lead generation efforts produce a greater ROI over time.

Participants rated lead hand-off and management as the least challenging funnel process. CRM and marketing automation tools facilitate sending a lead to Sales, but the real challenge is identifying the right qualification criteria to determine when the hand-off should take place.

For additional research data and insights about B2B marketing, download and read the free Executive Summary from MarketingSherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report: Research and Insights on Attracting and Converting the Modern B2B Buyer.

And don't miss out -- there is still time to register for MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summit 2011 in San Francisco, CA on October 24-25.

Comments about this Chart

Oct 12, 2011 -
William of
Momentum Conferencing says:
Interesting data, but the first one (conversion from lead into customer) is a sales department challenge, not a marketing challenge.

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